Perhaps this is the legal interpretation, but I have to say I find this silly. I’m legally an adult and biologically a male; however, I have never once considered myself to be part of any militia.
Any militia in which the majority of its members are unaware of their membership is not well-regulated in any sense of the word. 
stofsky
You would do well to head back to your grammar books. The part with the militia is the “dependent clause” and the the part that identifies a right is the independent clause.
Here, check out Cecil
He seems to disagree with your little re-write of the english language. Here is his version of a re-write:
**A reasonable restatement of the amendment might go something like this: “Since we as a nation have found it necessary to organize citizen militias to defend against tyranny and may be compelled to do so again, and since these militias are necessarily composed of volunteers supplying their own weapons, the right of individuals to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
**
Are you in favor of voiding out all the other rights that use the word “people” in the Bill of Rights? If not, then I find this arguement a little disengenous.
**BlackKnight
**
The link to the legal definition of Militia has been posted countless times in the gun threads, I doubt anyone who has been involved will question the definition. And anyway…since the Constitution is the ULTIMATE legal document in this country, shouldn’t we be using legal interpretations exclusively?
The 2nd Amendment Reads:
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Now, you students of simple grammar will note that the first part of this sentence is a PREAMBLE, and does not modify the second part.
You know, those founding fathers could actually write quite well. If they had meant that the right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed only for militia members, they could easily have written, “The right to keep and bear arms of those people in a well-regulated militia shall not be infringed”.
If I said, “Because blacks have been discriminated against in the past, all people shall be treated equally under the law”, would you then conclude that this statement did not apply to, say, Chinese people?
First, “preamble” is not a grammatical part of a sentence. That is a dependent clause, and though it is dependent, it is part of the meaning of the entire sentence. Dependent, dear friends, does not mean “disposable.” Second, your analogy, as analogies tend to do, breaks down. At the time of the writing, all white males of legal age were part of the militia, and since those were the only “people” in most of their views, to use your argument, that’s what they did write. Militia members (free white males) shall be allowed to own weapons.
I’m using the founding fathers argument because that’s the one that the NRA most often pulls out of its hat. However, if someone would like to take over the living constitution argument I’d love to see it.
Damn, damn, damn! When am I finally going to keep that promise to myself to stop arguing with rabid anti-abortionists, gun nuts, racists, republicans, and fundies?
Perhaps when you cease the gratuitous insults?
I’ll give you “rabid” as somewhat insulting, and perhaps I should have said “fervent”. But what was gratuitious? Gun nut? I’m a music nut, myself. Fundy? Short for fundamentalist–if the colloquial abbreviation is gratuitous or insulting, I apologize. I merely meant to state that in cases of abortion, 2nd Amend., race, politics, and religion, argument is masturbatory since the opposition (either side) won’t listen but instead looks for ways to deconstruct or sidetrack your argument. But I guess you proved that for me, didn’t you?
No, it says that it is a right for the people. This isn’t exactly a debatable subject. The second amendment says
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” And calling the bolded part a “fragment” just shows even more grammatical ignorance. It has a subject (the right…) and a verb (infringed).
Unless your position is that only white land owning males may own guns, this is completely irrelevant.
Let’s see… we can go by your “interpretation”, which bears only a superficial resemblance to what it actually says, or we can go by what it actually says.
Yes. Exactly the point. The preamble is not a grammatical entity. Like a interjection, it serves only a cosmetic purpose, and does not change the meaning of the sentence. It’s like comments in source code; they don’t get compiled.
Are you going to explain how?
Well, then, if everyone’s a member of the militia, then the 2nd amendment still applies to everyone, doesn’t it?
Yes, seeing as how none of the people in this discussion have shown any evidence of even owning guns, let alone being “gun nuts”.
It’s rather hard to sidetrack an argument when none exists. Simply denying what the 2nd amendment clearly states is not an argument.
I can’t tell if Stoffers is saying “White people are superior” (an idiotic and bigoted state of mind) or “Since they had different opinions 200 years ago, they hold no meaning today” (an idiotic and childish state of mind.
Stoffy, m’man, which is it? Perhaps you’d like to fully elaborate on this subjet, along with all the others you’ve completely glossed over? It’d be much appreciated.
Black Knight, if you aren’t then you are most probably (assuming that you’re even an American; if you are not, why are you wasting our time here?) registered with the Selective Service, which is a database of all males of service age eligible to be called up to federal service.
From Merriam-Webster: militia
So lets go through this again (as this web-site and message board are dedicated to eradicating ignorance).
Constitution of the United States, Art. I, sec. 8, par. 16
10 USC says the following concerning the militia:
All bolding mine, for emphasis.
So, whether you know it or not, believe it or not, or even care or not, Black Knight, and probably everyone else here, is a member of the United States militia.
Oh, and the “well regulated militia…” is the subjective clause; “the right of the people…” is the operative clause.
ExTank
“Mostly Harmless :p”
tracer:
Apologies for the busted/snafued link.
The article can be found in its entirety at the NRA-ILA Website.
Look for the article by the same name as above, dated 2000-10-18.
*ExTank
“Mostly Harmless :p”
I heard a very interesting interview with Mr. Bellesiles who, for the record, is an enthusiastic gun aficianado whose interest in the American “gun culture” motivated him to do the research for this book. He did not have an agenda (according to him) and in fact has been seriously surprised by the vicious attacks from the NRA (even before the book was publicly available). He believed that anyone who owned guns would have a keen interest in their use throughout United States history. He admits that he was very surprised by the evidence he found.
Not even close. He went over all sorts of legal documents, import manifestos (since most guns were made abroad in the 18th and early 19th centuries), financial documents like store inventories and sales figures, local and federal legislation, newspaper articles, personal correspondence, and popular literature. He noted even the most casual or tangential reference to firearms.
What he discovered among other things (this is strictly from the 1/2-hr interview) was that guns were prohibitively expensive to buy, maintain, and fire (cost of ammunition), often costing as much as 1/4-1/2 of a laborer’s annual salary. Yes, militias relied on personal gun ownership, but many militias were also seriously underarmed, even when you included personal gun ownership.
The Civil War changed all that. This was the first war that civilians were allowed to take their military firearms back home with them (they were always collected at the end of every previous military engagement–unless they were owned by the person in the first place, of course). Only then did you see references to firearms in all these primary resources jump exponentially. His argument is simply that the gun culture that we accept as a given today is not as old as everyone believes it is–this is not posited as a “good” or “bad” thing, just a matter of historical record.
Sure, but the point is that it is a tradition that does not date back to the genesis of our nation. And even if it counts in your book, a lot of people are getting their britches in a bunch about taking an assertion based on scholarly research and associating that with an “attack”–probably because the research undermines their own arguments about how their defense and interpretation of the 2nd Amendment dates back to the 1700s.
When asked, Mr. Bellesiles was very clear in pointing out that he did not believe that the NRA or gun lobby “manufactured” a 200+year gun culture tradition for their own benefit. They simply went on the same assumptions that everyone has gone on–that guns were plentiful all over colonial America. By stating that this is a “myth”, he has not attacked the NRA nor its agenda, just simply stated a conclusion he’s reached. Yet the NRA has gone to great lengths to attack him.
This is clear on the board, where his ideas have been called “rubbish” and as if “they came from Mars”–though every rebuttal link provided has a very obvious agenda behind the “criticism” of his scholarship.
He made an interesting analogy. Our country has no equal in the world as a car culture. Yet, is it somehow an insidious attempt to undermine or subvert or threaten this culture to assert that in the beginning, most people didn’t own cars–because of their availability, difficulty to use, and for any number of practical and financial considerations? He is saying the same thing about guns–what is the NRA so scared of?
Unfortunately, it appears that this thread has been hopelessly hijacked in that direction.
Actually, I was pointing out the difference in the definition of “people” at that time and the definition of “people” now, both in common thought and legally. My point is that in looking at the supposed intent of the framers of the Constitution, which unlimited-gun-rights supporters often do, there is an inherent flaw in the argument i.e. the view of said framers on militias, standing armies, and “people.” Just as I don’t think that you can biblically argue against homosexuality with a mouthful of bacon (this actually happened to me once), I don’t think that you can argue for your right to carry a Saturday-night special by quoting part of a sentence written over 200 years ago. The Constitution is a living document and was intended to be such. It was meant to change, to grow, and to adapt to the world; just as freedom of the press has grown, through debate, to include TV and the internet, just as freedom of religion, through debate, has grown to include Wicca and Scientology (none of which the framers could have imagined), we need to take a closer look at the full Second Amendment and adjust it and laws regarding it to fit current situations. Gun nuts,if I must gloss my terminology, would be those who promote unhampered, unregulated, free-for-all ownership of any weapon one can put one’s hands on.
As for the “preamble” part, The Ryan, it is a part of the sentence and it is not to be ignored like comments in code. As a previous poster said, the founders knew how to write well. As a part of a complete sentence, the phrase beginning with “the right” is a fragment of the complete sentence, even if it is an independent clause. I apologize for confusing you with vague terminology. Oh, but don’t call me grammatically ignorant when you can’t identify the simple predicate in a sentence. The predicate–the operative part in an independent clause and different than merely a verb–is “be.” Infringed, in this case is an object and not a verb at all. Don’t try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, boy. I teach this bullshit.
I found this review to be quite enlightening. Dismiss it as “agenda-driven” if you like, but I present it here as an alternate viewpoint and a criticism of Bellesiles’ scholarship. An enlightening excerpt:
Such misquoting suggests questionable scholarship at best, at least in my eyes.
It’s a little known fact that up until the Civil War America fought it’s wars, shot its wildlife and conducted its duels with Nerf guns.
There’s probably a technical meaning of “conscientious objector” which I don’t know of. Therefore, I don’t know if I am one or not.
For the record, I am registered with selective service, because my parents didn’t like the idea of my possibly being fined large sums of money. grumble grumble
I’m curious why you’d consider me to be wasting my time here if I wasn’t American, but that’s another matter entirely.
This is indeed interesting. Thank you for all the information. I always find it interesting when the technical definition of a word differs from the common usage of the word.
What are “subjective clause” and “operative clause”, and how do they apply to this situation?
I’m relatively new here, and generally don’t get involved with the gun threads. Please pardon my ignorance.
Well sure.
Again pardon my ignorance, but has the legal definition of militia changed since the 2nd amendment was written?
Now, see that is a sentence fragment. Care to present what you think the flaw is in a complete sentence?
Of course not. It is appropiate, however, to quote the entire sentence, and the entire sentence says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. Oh wait, when I responded to you, I only quoted the last part. Did this change the meaning of the sentence?
First of all, I don’t see how the other examples you gave are true. There is no freedom of the press on TV, and the internet is just a medium for protecting speech that was already protected. “Freedom of religion” means “freedom of all religions”, not “freedom of the religions we can think of”. Secondly, how does the idea that we have recognized new applications of old rights imply that we should abolish old rights?
And can you give any examples of such from this thread?
The fact of the matter is that it does not modify, clarify, restrict, expand, redefine, qualify, or in any other way affect the rest of the sentence. It is therefore not necessary in the interpretation of the sentence. I never said it should be ignored; it is useful in a historical sense, but it is not useful in interpreting the amendment. It is exactly like comments in a program. If you precede a line of code with the phrase: “Well initialized variables being important to the smooth functioning of a program”, do you think the computer will take any note of it? No. It doesn’t care why you tell it what to do, it just cares what you tell it to do. The preamble doesn’t tell us what we should do, but why.
What makes you think I can’t?
No, as near as I can tell, the predicate is “shall not be infringed”.
An object!!!? It isn’t even a noun, let alone an object. It’s a verb in the passive voice and in the negative subjunctive mood.
And Behe teaches biology. What’s your point?
You will not find a single rational poster that has advocated that. I haven’t, Extank hasn’t, Max Torque hasn’t, Freedom2 hasn’t, Unclebeer hasn’t, Charleton Heston hasn’t… heck, I really doubt that the “militants” in Montana advocate “no controls”. This, my dear Stof’ems, is an example of bleeding-heart rhetoric that has no basis in reality, and as such, had no place on these boards.
I repeat, nobody has promoted “unhampered, unregulated, free-for-all ownership of any weapon”.
stofsky
If you keep ignoring me I am going to develop a complex.
Somehow you keep glossing over my posts. I hope my points are not causing major stumbling points for you. Allow me to slighlty insult you in an attempt to bait you into answering me. Here is the quick re-cap. You started out by claiming that the fragment of the sentence that includes “militia” was the independent clause, and that the fragment with “people” was the dependent clause. A post or two later you abrubtly switched this. Could you tell me which one really is the Independent clause?
If it is the part that includes “people,” wouldn’t that make everything else included in the sentence subordinate to that thought?
Next…I quoted the Master over HERE
This would be his re-write of the 2nd:
**A reasonable restatement of the amendment might go something like this: “Since we as a nation have found it necessary to organize citizen militias to defend against tyranny and may be compelled to do so again, and since these militias are necessarily composed of volunteers supplying their own weapons, the right of individuals to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
**
Could you please explain to me why he is wrong?
Then…you claimed that you are a teacher. You may very well be a teacher, but you sure as heck seem to have trouble reading a simple sentence.
You also seem to be quite the racist. Do you resent the Founding fathers for not being perfect? While there were certainly flaws in the Constitution, they did leave room for it to grow.
This was my answer the first time you posted this problem:
**Are you in favor of voiding out all the other rights that use the word “people” in the Bill of Rights? If not, then I find this arguement a little disengenous. **
No problem. The Founding Fathers left us a mechanism for changing the Constitution. It is called an AMENDMENT. All of the problems that you referenced up above were fixed by following a set, legal procedure for changing the Constitution. I will not at this time argue whether or not we can legally eliminate an Amendment from the Bill of Rights, but if you did want to, you would have to pursue a Constitutional Amendment.
Please read Cecil’s link up above. Before you start throwing around loose arguements that have been deflected a thousand times, you might want to read a primer in this debate.
I imagine you running around in circles with your hands up in the air screaming about your “victory,” completely ignorant that you failed to score a point. Are aware that there would be no contradiction in eating bacon and argueing against homosexuality based on the Bible?
Yet again you fail to score any points.
(I’m not argueing against homosexuality, just pointing out that this is not a contradiction)
I think you misunderstood him; he said that you would be wasting our time if you were not American. Why? Because then the claim that you are not a member of a militia would not be relevant.